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Twelve months back, the landscape was completely different. Ahead of the US presidential election, thoughtful citizens could recognize the nation's serious imperfections – its unfairness and inequality – yet they still could see it as the US. A democracy. A country where the rule of law meant something. A nation led by a honorable and upright public servant, notwithstanding his older age and growing weakness.

Nowadays, as October 2025 ends, many of us scarcely know the land we inhabit. Individuals believed to be illegal immigrants are detained and shoved into transport, sometimes blocked from fair treatment. The East Wing of the presidential residence – is being destroyed to build a lavish ballroom. The president is persecuting his opponents or perceived antagonists and insisting federal prosecutors hand over an enormous amount of public funds. Armed military personnel are dispatched into American cities under fabricated reasons. The Pentagon, relabeled the Department of War, has effectively liberated itself of routine media oversight as it spends potentially totaling close to a trillion USD of taxpayer money. Colleges, attorney offices, media outlets are yielding under the president’s threats, and rich magnates are regarded as nobility.

“The US, only a few months ahead of its 250-year mark as the globe's top democratic nation, has fallen over the limit toward dictatorship and extremism,” Garrett Graff, commented this past summer. “Ultimately, faster than I thought feasible, it transpired here.”

One awakes amid recent atrocities. It is challenging to understand – and agonizing to acknowledge – how deeply lost our nation is, and how quickly it has happened.

However, we know that the president was legitimately chosen. Following his profoundly alarming initial presidency and even after the cautions linked to the knowledge of the rightwing blueprint – even after the president personally said publicly he would be a dictator only on the first day – a majority of citizens selected him rather than the other candidate.

Frightening as the present situation are, it's more frightening to recognize that we are just three-quarters of a year into this presidential term. Where will another 36 months of this decline leave us? And suppose the three years becomes a more extended duration, since there is no one to limit this leader from opting that another term is required, perhaps for defense purposes?

Admittedly, all is not lost. We will have midterm elections in 2026 which might bring a different political equilibrium, in case Democrats retake the Senate or House of the legislature. There exist government representatives who are attempting to exert a degree of oversight, such as Democratic congressmen that are initiating an inquiry regarding the effort to money grab by federal prosecutors.

And a leadership election in the next cycle could initiate the path to healing precisely as the previous vote placed us on this disappointing trajectory.

There exist countless citizens marching in urban areas of their cities, like they performed last weekend during anti-authority protests.

An ex-cabinet member, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of the nation is awakening”, just as it did after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or amid the sixties activism or in the Nixon controversy.

During those times, the tilting vessel ultimately corrected itself.

The author states he recognizes the indicators of that revival and notices it unfolding currently. As support, he references the large-scale demonstrations, the widespread, bipartisan pushback to a television host's removal and the near-unanimous rejection by reporters to agree to military mandates they solely cover authorized information.

“The sleeping giant consistently stays asleep until specific greed grows too toxic, an specific act so disrespectful toward public welfare, specific cruelty so loud, that it is compelled other than to stir.”

It's a hopeful perspective, and I respect the author's seasoned opinion. Perhaps he will prove to be right.

Meanwhile, the major inquiries endure: is the US able to return to normalcy? Can it retrieve its status globally and its adherence to constitutional order?

Or do we need to admit that the historical project functioned for a period, and then – swiftly, totally – ended?

My cynical mind indicates that the final scenario is accurate; that everything might be lost. My hopeful heart, though, advises me that we must try, by any means possible.

In my case, working in journalism analysis, that’s about urging journalists to live up, more thoroughly, to their duty of overseeing leadership. For some people, it might involve participating in election efforts, or coordinating protests, or developing approaches to protect ballot privileges.

Under twelve months back, we were in a very different place. A year from now? Or in several years? The fact is, we cannot predict. Our sole course is to attempt to persevere.

What Provides Me Hope Now

The engagement I encounter in the classroom with aspiring reporters, who are both visionary and grounded, {always